Pumpkins and Perverts

Ok, I’ve got it. I can do arrivals and departures, and I know what a ‘relationship’ is. Armed with this invaluable knowledge, it occurs to me that maybe it’s time to have a bit of fun; I decide to try Speed Dating.

The idea is deceptively simple, and (assuming you manage your expectations) is actually quite enjoyable. Bearing in mind that a good time in our family consists of a tour round wonders such as the Telford Piston and Steam Traction Museum, speed dating rocks. (Gosh! A 42 valve 3mm diameter double plated swash piston” shouts my dad “Oooh darling, that’s marvellous” trills my mother. “Oh look, a blunt instrument perfect for bashing one’s brains out for some light entertainment” I grimace). So in comparison, Speed Dating is a walk in the park. 20 men. 20 women. 3-minute conversations. Alcohol on demand. What could possibly go wrong?

And on this particular evening, it’s all very pleasant, with lots of nice men and friendly chat, but fairly unproductive in an “excuse me, but are you my husband?” kind of way. And at the end of a very long evening,  I sit down across Excuse-Me-But- Are-You-My Husband No 20, and we settle down to  a nice chat about his job. And it turns out that he’s a Biotechnician or something. An Intellectual Husband! This is a thought which has never occurred to me. If I’m quick enough I’ll bag him before he realises I’m more Donkey than Scrabble.  Not so much Marie Curie as Mariah Carey. Must throw in some deceptively long words.  

So, whilst perfunctorily executing multifarious lexicon, I drag him to the pub next door, where there is a major post-speed-dating party kicking off. As we walk in, the crazy drunk Irish girl who I’d met earlier on in the evening is lining up tequila slammers along the bar, and, with her gaze firmly on my husbands’ really rather attractive and very unreliable mate, is knocking them back one by one.  I smell a good night unfolding, but note to self: mustn’t get too drunk, mustn’t start having too much fun, and definitely must not lose purpose of evening. Just one Tequila Slammer with Irish NBF for Dutch courage and female solidarity. Meanwhile I put my thoughts out to the Universe, and send up thanks, in advance, for my lovely sensible reliable husband. Yummy Tequila Slammers. Just one more, and then I’ll definitely focus. On husbands and dishwashers and pensions and everything……

……And so down to business. Perusing how to move my marriage forward, I decide to aim for the route of Domestic Goddess in answer to his Intellectual Prowess. I can blag it for an evening – tomorrow’s a new day. So I casually mention the weekly organic veg box, and, in order to start a light yet significant conversation, I inform him of this weeks’ pumpkin recipe. Except this cosy and domestic conversation on vegetable utilisation doesn’t go quite as planned and too late! I can see a filthy twinkle in his eye.

Oh god help me, I’m old enough to know better, but filthy twinkles have always made me giggle, with or without tequila, and so slurping away on my lime quarters, I happily eschew all those lovely respectable young(ish) men who might actually be offering me a lifetime of happiness filled with garden furniture and cleaning products.  Instead, I turn sharply to the divorced father-of-two who, it turns out, does a fine line in sexual deviations.

To be fair, a large part of our conversation is respectability itself. We discuss music, politics and media. We discuss his children, his ex-wife (“she was just too boring” You don’t say?!!) He comes across as a lovely respectable man – It’s just he also has a penchant for slightly more outlandish tastes.

Now, I can’t go into too much detail for obvious reasons, but whilst propped up against the bar, and in response to his increasing fervour, I seem to spend the evening careering from outraged “I am not doing that, I’m a nice girl from Worthing” to an entirely reasonable “I’m terribly sorry, but I bruise really easily” to a slightly puzzled “Er…are you sure that’s physically possible?”

Oh yes, the evening is getting more and more bizarre by the second. Time is ticking on, Speedsters are hitting the dance floor, (or have disappeared in twos, last seen heading towards the taxi rank) and to add to the evening, my Crazy Irish NBF who has been stuck to her Unreliable Husband’s face for the last two hours has returned. In a somewhat frail state of mind, she decides it’s time I know her full life story. From the tragic demise of Mr Boogles the hamster, through to her brother’s on-going drug problems, we pretty much cover her whole history. In glorious painstaking detail.

This is not quite how the evening was supposed to go; in one ear I have a strange Irish lady weeping on my shoulder about the injustices of life (“get a grip lady and pass the tequila”) and in the other, my Pervert Husband is still busily informing me of his interests and hobbies, and light aircraft it ain’t. (“well, I’m very flattered, of course I am, I’m just a bit squeamish”)

Eventually, Crazy Irish Lady draws breath long enough for her Unreliable Husband to jump in – taking full advantage of her somewhat exhausted and vulnerable state, he sweeps her off towards the door, and they are last seen heading towards the taxi rank……

Which just leaves me, and my Dirty Pervert Husband. As the cold fingers of dawn slink across the bereft, hapless bar, I can see Dirty Husband frantically looking for the nearest exit. What’s the point of a wife who doesn’t do what she’s told? Who isn’t open to a bit of ‘adventure’ and ‘self-discovery’? A wife who when propositioned with a bit of S&M, can only think of the pre-Christmas sale in a certain ladies high-street retailers?

On my solitary cab journey home, I reflect sadly on yet another failed marriage. Where is this all going? What am I doing wrong? Why doesn’t anyone love me? Still, on balance, I realise it could be worse; I never did find out what he wanted to do with the kippers, the thermal underwear and the high court summons……..

Engelbert Humperdinck is not my husband.

So moving forward a few years. I’ve moved to Brighton, I’m mid thirties, and I’m having visions of spending old age poking my eyes out with rusty nails to avoid watching re-runs of Diagnosis Murder over a pilchard sandwich and a custard cream. I decide portentously that it’s time to start searching for my husband. Again. With crazy look in eye and laptop in hand I spend pointless tedious hours surfing the web desperately looking for a man who doesn’t LOL, spout utter tripe or come from Eastbourne.

And thus it came to be that I ‘met’ Tony. Or maybe it was Brian.  Nice bloke, good job, own house. What else does an Internet Lady need?  Ignoring his first email where he told me he’d been late to work that morning after cleaning up cat sick “but I won’t go into detail……” we start the inane business of internet correspondence, which is pretty straightforward once you get the hang of it.

If you’re new to all this, then the easiest way forward is to assume all questions lead to one ultimate destination; from “what do you do for a living?” to “Exactly how many ex-wives do you have?” they all have the same purpose; to seed out the freaks, the losers, the desperate and the poor. Sadly though, this is not always foolproof, and that’s where the fun starts.

As our ‘relationship’ developed, he came across as a bit of an aging rocker, and threw in lazy deliberate references of playing riffs on his guitar late into the night, standing up when he went to see live music, and even wore a leather jacket in his photo. Apart from the cat vomit, he seemed to be my Perfect Aging Rocker Husband.  And of course I’ve always fancied being Jerry Hall.

Except that when we meet up, there’s no sign of Mick. Or Kurt. Not even an Ozzy –  at least you’d never get bored. Instead, oh god help me, in the corner I spy a Cliff. Or is it Val?  Clearly this can only go one way. And it’s not up. At this point, I would like to point out that he was a lovely, lovely man. It’s just he was also like a big enthusiastic Labrador puppy looking for a new home.  Lovely and simple and enthusiastic and…….. ready to fall for any women who would have him – as long as she had a pulse, she would be the perfect wife. Now forgive me for being picky, but I would prefer it if my husband was attracted to something other than the fact that I was still breathing.

But I keep being told that I’m too choosy, and not open enough blah blah blah. So much to my better judgement, I agree to another date. This just reiterates my point. It turns out the last gig he went to was Zero 7 (oh for gods sake), he only knows two riffs or chords or whatever and he’s never even had sex with two women at the same time. If he’s Mick then I’m Janis. And I’m not, cos I’ve never smoked crack or sung in front of 20,000 people. Not yet anyway.

Anyhow, after date no 2, I decide it’s time for a divorce and preferably a quick one. Except it’s not that easy, because as far as I can tell he’s starting to show psychotic stalker tendencies, and he won’t leave me alone. I should’ve seen the warning signs when he declared that women told him he was too open, but he didn’t see it as a problem as “I just say how I feel……”

Subsequently, he decides that after two dates and a few emails, he can’t live without me, and declares his undying love.  After 48 hours of being bombarded with incessant communication, I’m starting to get that familiar feeling of being trapped, like I’m underwater and I’ll never break the surface and I can feel the walls closing in………..

 So, I head over to a friend for some moral support, a bit of melodrama and a sneaky glass of wine. The conversation goes something along the lines of:

Me:  He just won’t leave me alone. He’s always ringing to make sure I got home safely or to see how I am. Sometimes he even rings twice a day.

She raises a cynical eyebrow.

Me: And he told me he was Mick Jagger but it turns out he’s Val Doonican.

A sad smile flits across her face as she picks baby sick out of her hair, while the rattling of chains echo across the stark, empty kitchen.

Me:  And sometimes he rings for no reason at all. Just to talk to me or something. It’s downright sad.

She looks at me with a strange pitying look that somehow rings a bell. Leaning forward, she pats my arm, “Darling, that’s called a relationship…..”

Postscript: One terse text later “I’m sorry, I don’t think this is going to work. I think we both want different things” and hey presto! One quickie divorce.  Result.

 In the words of Kurt Cobain, “If it’s illegal to rock and roll, throw my ass in jail!”

How to get rid of your husband in three easy steps……

I think it is only right to start at the beginning. My Very First Internet Date. Which means I am walking into a London pub, after trying on every outfit in my wardrobe to decide on my look; should it be casually glamorous? Sex-kitten? Domestic Goddess? From past experience, casually glamorous means spending the evening trying to resist the urge to pick knickers out of bum whilst making scintillating conversation, (multi-tasking on a whole new level). Might get done on the trade description act for Domestic Goddess, and besides, all that effort looks so exhausting. On the other hand, sex kitten entails spending the evening fretting over whether I look like a slut (and is that a bad thing? Yes, according to my mum; “Joanne, you are such a slut” was a phrase I grew up with, but then her response on hearing that I’d landed a new job in London was “Darling, always make sure you carry a spare pair of pants in your bag – you never know when they might come in handy” so I’ll let you decide.)

Final decision; jeans, t-shirt,  trainers, largely dictated by wardrobe (or lack of) with a salute to sex kitten by slapping on a bit of lippy, which always makes me look like a bit of a tart, I think.  Then again, as per Zen, it’s very important to get a balance in life, so apparently I’ve gone for casual tart.

Step 2: establishing face to face contact within chosen venue.  This is actually pretty simple largely due to the fact that walking into a pub/coffee house/cinema, you quickly realise there aren’t many men sitting on their own with a strangely poignant look of nonchalant terror written across face.  Between eye contact and welcoming smile, there is usually a speedy value judgement whether this evening is even viable.  Yes, it is important to stay open, but at the same time, it only takes a milli-second to clock the nazi emblem, the wooly hat (it’s August for god’s sake and you’re 42) or the slightly deranged look in eye.  Get over the bad trainers by all means, but if, within minutes of meeting he talks about how many times a week he meets his mum and “how close” he is to his sister, look for the emergency exit.  

So, back to London. To be honest, I can’t remember the reason why it took a split second to realise this particular man was not my husband. For argument’s sake, let’s pretend he’s a Nazi. (it’s only a matter of time, after all….) The point is, planning a departure route is an essential part of any date, and the one element I find the most difficult. Making an entrance is pretty simple, but how do you escape without upsetting their fascist tendencies/familial beliefs or simply being hunted for the next three months by a freak who has a secret stash of  Stalker Monthly, a model railway collection and his dead mother embalmed in the front room?

Even today, it never seems to occur to me that being straightforward and honest would be the best policy; “Thanks ever so much, it’s been great, but I don’t think our politics quite match” or “To be honest, I have a bit of an issue with close families” or even “I’m sorry, I can’t see this working, but I’ve had a lovely night.”

So, on this particular night, I come up with a plan. I am going to make myself so repugnant and offensive that he runs for the hills screaming “Where are all the ladies?”  So I begin with alcohol. Safe in the knowledge that while pinioning off pillars in a club is perfectly acceptable, a dim view is taken of horrifically drunken ladies in pubs bouncing off walls and floors, I start the serious business of drinking. Sadly, after a “few” pints and a bucket of wine, the only affect appears to be slight nausea (mine) and a declaration (his) that “it’s so refreshing to see a woman who knows her own mind” So onwards and upwards to chain-smoking. This does seem to cool his ardour somewhat, but he’s still offering to buy drinks, while sadly I am still having assertiveness issues.  With a quick Hail Mary to Buddha, I reach into the very depths of my soul, and decide the only way forward is to start swearing. Loudly. In public. In front of a stranger. (What would my mother say?!)  After half an hour of various expletives, a few more buckets of wine and borrowing a few quid for another packet of fags, I’m actually starting to enjoy the date, and now I come to think about it, he is actually quite attractive and really rather fascinating……

Jump forward 12 hours. I’m sitting at work, nursing an horrific hangover, safe in the knowledge that yes, I did run to the toilets muttering the immortal words “I’m going to be sick” yes I did try to snog him with a final demand of “well, what’s wrong with me then?!” And yes he was out of the pub quicker than a bat out of hell.  I love it when a plan comes together.

I didn’t see that one coming

So this is it, right. I have a bit of a crisis, and everything goes a bit off-piste, except I’ve stopped drinking, so instead I hit therapy. And she says Listen Bootie, get off the beach, stop drinking all that coffee and sort yourself out. Well, she didn’t, but she should’ve. It might’ve saved me a bit of cash. So the next thing I’m trying to Sort My Life Out. And after endless coffee and watching the tides come in and the tides go out, and dogs pooing on the beach, I realise that I’d quite like a husband. Not just any husband. But a fucked-up, delicious, twisted, yummy twat of a husband. Like a bespoke one, but the specification was on the cheap side, so there are some really irritating bits, which is lucky really cos I’m definitely more morris minor than mercedes, so when the chips are down, it’s tit for tat (as it were). And after a bit of internet shenanigans and candlelit 3-minute conversations the dating game starts. And I soon realised you couldn’t make this shit up. So, with no further introduction, please give a warm welcome to all those lovely men on this huge planet. God bless you all.

(Please note names have been changed, for privacy reasons, but also cos I keep forgetting which one is which.)